The newest addition to the Soo Eagles certainly made his presence felt in his first game with a natural hat trick to give the Eagles a 4-2 win over Port Huron and move into sole possession of first place in the NAHL North Division.

Adams comes to the Eagles from Holy Cross, where he played in just two games this season. He said he left for financial reasons — tuition plus room and board comes out to $55,130, according to the college's website — and after talking with fellow Chicagoland native Cody von Reuden, the Eagles coaching staff and receiving options from other junior teams, he settled on the Eagles.

The Eagles put him on a line with leading scorers Jared VanWormer and Eric Rivard, and after struggling to connect in the first period the line played much better in the final two periods.

"Once we started to get a feel for each other, we started getting better and better together," Adams said. "It makes it easy to play the game when both your linemates want to work just as hard as you do. I can't credit them enough for helping me in my first game."

With the Eagles trailing 2-1, Adams scored his first goal by flying through the slot and banging home a centering pass from Jared VanWormer at the 13:14 mark of the second period. He gave the Eagles the lead 40 seconds later on a power-play slap shot that appeared to go through the side of the net, as the Fighting Falcons coaching staff argued.

"I think it shot straight in there, don't think there was a tip or anything," Adams said. "I don't normally take slap shots, but I took one and I put it real low and I guess it just went in underneath his skate. When I saw the puck go in I was pretty ecstatic."

Adams has bounced around quite a bit over the past few years, playing two seasons with the Alberni Valley (B.C.) Bulldogs with a quick stop with the NAHL's Corpus Christi IceRays last season before shipping out to Worchester, Mass., with Holy Cross. He scored 20 goals and had 26 assists in 83 games over two years in the BCHL, but he says his three-goal outburst Friday was his first in six years.

Adams sat out most of the third period with cramps and was replaced on the top line with VanWormer and Eric Rivard by Sean Murphy, who played with the Traverse City North Stars last season and was with the Sioux Falls Stampede of the USHL this year.

Another newcomer, Pat Thompson, acquired in a trade from the Odessa Jackalopes for a tender, scored the Eagles' first goal.

Page 2 of 2 - "We're just trying different people there, we The Murphy kid played up with them before (in Traverse City)," Fraser said. "We're looking for a little more secondary scoring, so hopefully that's going to help. All four of our goals were scored by the new kids. If you look at the stats, most of our scoring has been done by that one line and a couple defensemen."

Kody Polin scored for the Falcons 3:26 into the game before Thompson tied it 2 minutes later. Easton Powers gave the Falcons a 2-1 lead 12 seconds before the end of the first half. Polin was wide open in the slot for his goal, and Powers jumped on a big rebound to score, highlighting uncharacteristic defensive mistakes for the Eagles in the first period.

"The first goal, the one forward there didn't cover his man in the slot and just let him go," Fraser said. "He should have just put his stick on (Polin's) stick, instead he just watched it. I thought the second goal was kind of a soft goal, Tyler (Marble) would probably tell you it wasn't his best effort there."

NOTES: The Eagles were to play Port Huron on Saturday night. The game ended after press deadline. … Lake Superior State head coach Jim Roque and assistant coach Tim Christian were on hand to watch two players set to join the team next year, Port Huron leading scorer Ian Miller and Soo Eagles goaltender Tyler Marble. Miller put five shots on Marble but finished with no points. Marble had 42 saves to improve his league-leading save percentage to .947. Teammate Zach Nagelvoort is second with .939. … Marble leads the NAHL in saves with 736 despite being 10th in minutes played.